


There'll be peace when you are done - are you done?

by mindfluff



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27822562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindfluff/pseuds/mindfluff
Summary: Canon compliant up to theshittyend of 15x20
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Kudos: 37





	There'll be peace when you are done - are you done?

**Author's Note:**

> So obviously the Supernatural ending was a horrible trainwreck, and not just because it wasn’t the story the fans wanted. There were gaps that made no sense to me, and not just the missing people, but gaps in the story. And we’re not touching the ‘nuke the fridge’ trope unless we’re doing it to extract Charlie/Ellen/Jo/Mary/Cas.  
> ANYWAY The biggest gaps for me were the “find anything? Yeah I got something” leading to a pie festival, which somehow abruptly turned into a vampire clown ~~clownpires, clowpires?~~ hunt, with no explanation of how that happened. So, I figured it out. And fixed it all at the same time. 
> 
> Thanks to my betas Weresilver and Anna for making sure my tenses were right.

_Carry on my wayward son,_

_There’ll be peace when you are done._

_Lay your weary head to rest,_

_Don’t you cry no more._

Dean heard the old Kansas song fade away from baby’s speakers just as he felt Sam come up behind him. He couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face as he turned around.

“Hey Sammy.”

“Dean.”

Dean wrapped his brother in a tight hug, and felt Sam clutch him just as tightly. 

“God, I missed you,” Sam whispered.

Dean released the embrace, but still kept his hands on his brother’s shoulders. He’d felt horrible for dying like that, just when he was starting to live again and leaving everything for Sam to deal with. He almost felt worse now, seeing Sam, and knowing he followed his big brother sooner than he should have.

“What do you mean?” he asked, “I’ve only been here for like, an hour, maybe two tops. I mean, I know Bobby said time moves different but still, it can’t have been that long.”

Sam gaped at him. “Dude. You died thirty-two years ago.”

“No,” Dean whispered. “No way.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, pulling his brother back into a tight hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Dean felt his eyes water and a lump form in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to…”

They stood like that, arms wrapped around each other tightly, tears trickling down their faces for a few seconds before Sam gave his brother one last squeeze, then stepped away.

They leaned against the bridge railing, Dean’s arm around his brother’s shoulder, reluctant to let him go as they watched the river below them flow from the mountains.

“So… thirty two years, huh; what’d you do without me?” Dean asked.

“I lived, Dean,” Sam answered with a chuckle. “After that hunt where you…” Sam paused and Dean could hear him swallow hard. “It was rough. I was in your room, and one of the cell phones rang. It was someone in Austin with a werewolf hunt, so I took Miracle and we headed out. When I finished it, I was done. Gave the keys to the bunker to Jody, and … done.”

“So I guess Jody and the girls kept on hunting?” Dean asked.

Sam chuckled. “Yes, and no. I guess Jack did something with most of the monsters when he brought everyone back. There just weren’t many anymore, and no demons at all. What we saw before? How there were no cases? That’s how it mostly was. I checked up on Garth, and he and his family were fine so I’m not sure what happened. There wasn’t much of a need for an old, screwed up hunter, so I bailed before I got myself or somebody else killed. Took a couple of years to get my head straight, but eventually I married Eileen.”

“You old dog you,” Dean cut in, jostling Sam.

Sam snorted, “Yeah, it didn’t work out in the long run, but we had a kid. Named him after you. Smart as hell, he’s a mechanical engineer and works with cars. He’s been keeping Baby running even after all this time.”

“No shit,” Dean whispered. He could feel himself tearing up again, but fuck it, this was heaven and if he got emotional, he wasn’t gonna hide it here. His job of being tough and taking care of his brother was more than over. “I can’t believe you kept her.”

Sam cleared his throat. “I couldn’t get rid of her. She was all I had left of my family. Any time I started missing you too much, I’d take her for a ride. Hell, sometimes just sitting in her was enough.” He gave a watery chuckle. “I sure was happy when it turned out Dean had an aptitude for cars though, keeping her running was starting to cost a fortune.”

“I bet,” Dean said with a smile. “It was getting expensive before you got her. So uh, what did you tell your kid about me? About us?”

“He knows the stories, he’s been around Claire and Kaia and all them. He got an anti-possession tattoo, said it paid homage to the family legacy, but he’s never been on a hunt. We finally broke the cycle mom wanted out of.”

Dean gave a watery laugh, “We’ll have to tell her.”

“Have you seen her yet?” Sam asked.

“No, first person I saw was Bobby, _our_ Bobby,” Dean answered. “He told me Jack changed all the rules of heaven. No more reliving your greatest hits, it's all open and freeform now. He Nexus’d this bitch.”

When Sam gave him the confused puppy look Dean continued, “You know, Star Trek? The one with Kirk _and_ Picard? The Nexus?”

Sam snorted. “You’re such a nerd.”

“Yeah well, you’re an uncultured swine,” Dean shot back with a grin. “He probably got that idea from Cas, we hadn’t had a chance to get that far into the movies.”

“Wait, you mean Cas is here?” Sam asked.

“Uh, yeah I guess?” Dean answered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Bobby said he helped Jack fix things, so I guess he got out of the Empty. I, uh, haven’t had a chance to go look for him yet. Been thinking of what I want to say to him.”

“What do you mean?”

Dean felt the blush heat up his cheeks and hoped Sam didn’t notice. “Well, he said some things before the empty took him…I uh, don’t want to screw up when I talk to him again, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it,” Sam answered with a sideways look at his brother, “how about you think about it while we go for a ride? I haven’t sat shotgun in way too many years.”

Dean grinned, “C’mon then kid, I’ll even let you pick the tape.”

Sam threw his head back and laughed, then headed for the Impala’s passenger seat.

The car door slammed behind Sam, and Dean hustled to get to the driver's side. Dean turned the engine over with a smooth rumble, and Sam patted the dashboard.

“Missed you girl,” he whispered.

“Damn right you did,” Dean said with a grin. “There’s nothing like the purr of Baby’s engine and the sound of her rubber on the road.”

“You two want a few minutes alone before we head out?” Sam answered with a grin.

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

They grinned at each other widely before Dean threw the car into gear and whipped into a U-turn, heading back the way he came.

Sam sitting shotgun and rummaging in the tape box felt right in a way it hadn’t for a while even before he’d died, and when Bon Jovi started blasting out of the Impala’s speakers, it only took a few words for both of them to start belting out the song.

In the silence between tracks, Dean thought he heard Cas’s voice but the next song on the homemade tape started and Dean couldn’t hear him any more.

He reached over to turn it down so he could hear better, and Sam gave him a quizzical look. “Thought I heard Cas there for a sec,” he said.

Sam twisted around, looking out the windows at the passing scenery, “I don’t see anything, and I don’t know why you’d hear him. Maybe it was background noise when you made the tape?”

“Dude,” Dean said, “ _heaven_ . I didn’t _actually_ make the tape, it's just one I thought up.”

“Well, maybe you thought it up with Cas’s voice in the background,” Sam said stubbornly.

“That’s stupid. Besides, did you hear him?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t know what I heard, but it sure as shit sounded like Cas.”

“You can ask him when we find him, ok?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean replied. The radio volume stayed low and nobody sang, Sam amusing himself windsurfing his hand out the window. 

The next song finished and again, Dean swore he heard Cas say something, and while it was still too soft to make out, it sounded louder than it had before. Dean slapped the button turning off the radio and slowed down.

“What’s the matter?” Sam asked.

“Heard it again,” Dean said, “shush.”

After a few seconds Sam spoke again. “I don’t hear anything.”

Dean stopped the car, and put it in park. “I can hear him, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. Definitely him though.”

They sat in silence, the engine idling smoothly, Dean practically sticking his head out the window to hear better.

“Dude, just drive,” Sam said. “We’ll probably find him at the Roadhouse.”

Dean waved at him to be quiet, opened the car door and got out. He walked around the Impala, peering into the woods on either side of the road, finally walking to the edge on the driver’s side before Sam opened his door.

“Dude, seriously?” he said over the top of the car. “Let’s just go. We can ask Bobby or someone at the Roadhouse, what you’re hearing is a heaven thing.”

“Yeah, you go on ahead,” Dean called back distractedly, “I’m going to walk into the woods a bit. He keeps fading in and out, but it sounds like it's coming from this way.”

“Dean!” Sam called out, exasperation clear in his voice, “Ash is probably at the Roadhouse, he’ll be able to _find_ Cas if nobody knows where he is. Let’s go!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean called back. “Just…give me a minute here.”

Dean didn’t Look back, but he knew Sam was rolling his eyes and making that noise he made when Dean did something he didn’t like. He didn’t care though, the farther away he got from Sam, the more he could hear Cas. He still couldn’t make out what he was saying, but at least it was a constant sound now.

Dean walked for a bit, meandering whichever way seemed to make Cas’s voice louder, crashing through the underbrush and extremely happy he hadn’t run into any thorn bushes as yet. The words were getting clearer now; every so often he could make out his name, but the rest of what Cas was saying was disjointed and made no sense.

Dean stopped for a second and looked around, just now starting to think he should have been paying more attention to where he was going in relation to the road. When he looked at the woods behind him, however, the path he’d traveled was obvious with trampled greenery and broken branches leading the way.

“Good thing you’re in heaven, you moron, leaving a trail a baby could follow,” he muttered to himself. “Cas, you here buddy?” he yelled, hoping to get a clearer response from the angel. He waited in silence for a few breaths, but when he got no response, he pressed on.

Dean kept walking, taking care now to leave a deliberate trail behind him. The further he walked, the louder Cas’s voice got, even though it still wasn’t any clearer. At least he didn’t have to worry about being quiet so he could hear it anymore.

After a few minutes, Dean broke through the woods into a clearing, and right in the middle stood a small cabin, almost like the hunting cabin Rufus had all those years ago. It was a little more run-down looking than it was the last time he’d been there, which again, didn’t make much sense to Dean. If this was something he’d conjured up, he’d have expected it to be more solid, and if it was Cas's creation, he’d have expected it to look like it was the last time Cas had been there. Not like it was one good storm away from falling down.

Dean gingerly walked up to the porch, testing each step to make sure it would hold his weight, and called out for Cas.

“Dean? Is that you,” Cas said from somewhere inside the building.

“Cas! You in there?” Dean called, trying to look in the window. The dirt and dust had built up to the point he could only see shadows inside, and none of them seemed to be moving.

“Dean, you need to open the door,” Cas said.

Dean tried to open the door, but even though the knob turned, the door wouldn’t budge. “I can’t Cas, it's locked or something. You’re going to need to open it.”

“I can’t Dean, only you can do it,” Cas said calmly.

“Are you ok?” Dean asked, still working at the door.

“I’m fine Dean, I just can’t open the door,” he answered.

“It's stuck,” Dean said again. “I’m going to try a window.” 

Dean jumped off the porch and headed for the woods again, looking for a rock or stick large enough to throw through the window. It took him a couple of minutes but eventually he found a rock about the size of his fist and lobbed it at the glass. 

It bounced off and landed on the porch.

“What the fuck?” he muttered. “Did that asshole use bulletproof glass?” He shook his head. “Not real, heaven. Its whatever I…Cas…who the fuck ever imagined it to be.”

He searched around again, this time finding a branch almost as thick around as his wrist. He brought it up to the porch with him, this time swinging at the window with it like he was trying for a home run. Like the rock, the branch just bounced off, and Dean was surprised enough it flew out of his hands on the rebound.

“Well fuck,” he muttered. “Cas, looks like the windows aren’t gonna break. Can you try working the door from your side? Check and see if something’s blocking it or jammed in there somehow?”

“There’s nothing on this side preventing it from opening Dean,” Cas answered. “You just have to want to open it.”

“I do want to open it, Cas,” Dean snapped jiggling the knob again, “it just won’t actually open.”

“No, you need to _really_ want the door to open Dean,” Cas repeated.

“Sounds like this is a puzzle room,” Dean muttered. “Thought heaven was supposed to be everyone happy.”

“You may think of it like a puzzle room, if that helps Dean,” Cas said. “I promise I am not injured and am in no danger, so you may take your time.”

“Puzzle room, huh?” Dean muttered. “Ok, so logic your way through this. You need to get into a house, but the door is, for all intents and purposes, bolted from the inside, and there are no windows. How do you do it.”

Dean repeated it under his breath as he thought about the problem. This kind of thing was never really his forté, it was always Sam who could see the trick logic. Once he pointed it out, Dean could see what to do, but Sam was better at the initial direction.

Dean walked around the cabin, looking at any potential points of entry; chimney - too small, eave vents - even smaller, foundation - fuck no, there was a panic room/dungeon down there if it was like the original. After about ten minutes, Dean gave up and tried the door again. It felt like the knob turned freely, but no matter how hard he pushed, the door wouldn’t budge.

“Uh Cas?” Dean called.

“Yes Dean?” 

Dean gave a relieved sigh hearing the angel was still there. “Uh, I can’t think of anything but the door, can you give me a hint?”

“All I can say Dean, is that you have to really want to open the door. You need to be completely committed to opening it.”

“Yeah, that’s not helpful,” Dean griped. After a few beats he said louder, “Can you uh, just keep talking to me or something? It’s too quiet, I’m used to having Sam making noise when we research.”

“Certainly Dean, what would you like me to talk about?”

“Whatever you want Cas, doesn’t matter, I just want to hear you.”

“Well ok then, let me tell you about the time I killed a djinn,” Cas started.

Dean sat on the porch, his back against the door, letting his mind turn over the problem, half listening to Cas’s voice in the background. It had dulled to a background noise, a low rumble where Dean could pick out most of the words if he tried, but he wasn’t really paying attention.

‘ _What could Cas mean by really wanting to open the door? Is it like that stupid door with the dragon head?_ ’ He turned around and inspected the doorknob, checking to see if there was some kind of hidden catch that needed to prick his finger. Nothing. 

As he felt around, however, his brain started focusing on Cas’s words.

“…some things before the Empty took me that he might find embarrassing.” Cas said. There was a pause before he continued, and Dean got the sense that Cas was probably talking on the phone to someone. Why he didn’t ask for help, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t sound upset or anything.. “I told him about my deal, that I had to be happy, and I’d finally realized that I didn’t have to have something to be happy, I just needed to admit to it.” There was another pause which confirmed Dean’s feeling, then, “I told him I loved him.”

“Yeah you asshole,” Dean called out. “And then you got sucked up by black goo before my brain could finish rebooting and tell you I loved you too!”

He reached for the doorknob without thinking and turned, leaning his weight into the door and was shocked when the door opened. The inside of the cabin shone with a bright white light, and Dean shielded his eyes with his arm.

When the light dimmed enough to not blind him through his eyelids, he gingerly opened his eyes to look for Cas. What he saw however, wasn’t the inside of Rufus’s dilapidated cabin, but the sterile environment of a hospital room. It was fairly dark in the room, the only light came from above the little sink by the door. He looked around the room as best he could, desperately trying to figure out what happened. It looked like he was the only one in the room - which is never a good thing considering he didn’t have fancy health insurance to pay for a private room - and it took a ridiculous amount of effort to simply turn his head. When he saw the man sitting in the chair next to the bed, it took him a few seconds to realize it was Cas; he was so used to seeing him in the trench coat and suit, it was jarring to see him in jeans and a hoodie. When Dean was finally able to focus on his face, he realized the other man looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. His scruff was tipping towards a full beard, his hair was more disheveled than normal and the bags under his eyes were bigger than carry-on luggage.

Dean opened his mouth to say something and was suddenly aware of something taped to his nose and going down into his throat. He coughed and Cas startled out of his half doze, and a smile spreading over his face as he realized Dean was awake.

“Hello, Dean.”


End file.
